POSSIBLE THEMATICS:1. Technologies-- medical technologies (e.g. medical imaging, drug therapies, prosthetics and other devices) and their implications for embodiment, subjectivity, community, kinship, and politics-- corporeality and the senses as sites/forms of knowledge-making-- biopolitics and surveillance-- the relationship between “old” and “new” technologies-- how technologies mediate social spaces of embodiment and interaction-- interrogations of the human and posthuman in medicine, science, and art

4. Affect-- explorations of “ugly feelings” (Ngai), “aesthetic nervousness” (Quayson), “moral spectatorship” (Cartwright), “empathic vision” (Bennett), and “seeing for” (Bal)-- relationships to medicalization, regulation, and surveillance-- affect as generative/productive in relation to concepts of ethical spectatorship and witnessing-- relationships between corporeality and theorizations of nature as dynamic and agentic (Barad, Grosz, Haraway)-- can we/should we move beyond the theories that posit /negative/ affect as a prime site for ethics?-- affect and global politics: representations of global mobilities, violence, war, terrorism

HOW TO SUBMIT A PROPOSAL:We kindly invite submissions from scholars, artists, health professionals, community members, and activists in all areas and disciplines.Concurrent sessions will be 90 minutes in length. Proposals for the following formats will be considered:1) Individual papers: 15 minutes in length2) Roundtables: 4-5 participants, including a designated moderator and a plan for facilitated discussion of ideasAll submissions will be peer-reviewed.

Individual paper submissions should include:1) affiliation and contact information2) a biographical note of up to 200 words3) paper title and a 300-500 word abstract; the description of the paper’s content should be as specific as possible and indicate relevance to one or more of the conference thematics.4) details of audiovisual needs (e.g. DVD, LCD projection, and/or VHS). Note that participants will need to bring their own laptops.

Roundtable submissions should include:1) affiliation and contact information for each participant2) a biographical note of up to 200 words for each participant3) roundtable title and a 500 word proposal. The proposal should both indicate the relevance of the roundtable to one or more of the conference thematics and outline the organization of the proposed discussion.4) details of audiovisual needs (e.g. DVD, LCD projection, and/or VHS). Note that participants will need to bring their own laptops.

All submissions should be sent via email attachment to viscult@mcmaster.ca by January 15, 2010. Please use the subject line “proposal for Health, Embodiment, and Visual Culture.” Attachments should be in .doc or .rtf formats.

ACCESSIBILITY:Presenters are encouraged to explore ways to make physical, sensory, and intellectual access a fundamental part of their presentation. Suggestions include: large print (18 point font) copies of handouts, large-print copies of paper or panel outlines, and/or audio descriptions of any film or video clips and images. Presenters are also encouraged to consider open or closed captioning of films and video clips.

POST-CONFERENCE PUBLICATION PLANS:Papers from the conference will be considered for a special issue of /The Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies/.

CONFERENCE SPONSORSHIP:Sponsored by the Department of English and Cultural Studies at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario (John Taylor Douglas Fund).